WARNING! Torrify is now XeroBank: Serious Questions.

We all heard good things about Torpark for so long. I used them, felt good about it. They had great publicity. They have now changed their name. It's now the "XeroBank Browser." I have questions now - serious questions. These are being passed to someone with a little more editorial clout on the net than myself and a thread at Wilders.

But remember, you heard it here first. Here we go......

To Torrify (XeroBank), some questions - and how about a little honesty?

Something caught my attention and I soon saw it was the tip of the iceberg. Your new XeroBank service (formerly Torrify Premium) is using Dalpay.is as your payment gateway. Not exactly a major player in the industry. Dalpay...Hmmm.....Where had I heard that name before? Oh, yeah....MetroPipe! The alleged loggers and government spies! Dalpay is also THEIR gateway payment provider. See the Dalpay processing page here with two services for anonymous browsing: Xerobank and Metropipe!

Just a coincidence? What about the following:

- Torrify was pushing on their old website the expensive unlimQ Anonymous Credit Cards. Guess who else does that? MetroPipe! See it here (under recommended - left sidebar) Here's the Google cache of the old Torrify site promoting the same (obscure) product.

-Torrify was pushing the Rayservers encrypted laptops. Guess who else does that? MetroPipe! See it here (under recommended - left sidebar)

- The new Xerobank uses "IPSpy" software (pretty rare) to test anonymous connections. Guess who else uses that? Metropipe! See it here. Now, if that weren't bad enough....for new "members" of XeroBank to check the "anonymity" of their connection with IPSpy, you go to this URL:https://client.xerobank.com/IPSpy
Even without using their service, what does the IP say? Yep - 88.198.52.150. The page is static. It's fake.
I hope you can see this before they take it down and change it. I've done a PC Recording of what happens, using their service, and using a different PC without using their service at all. Both show the "anonymous" IP. Hmmmm.

- The new Xerobank is getting ready to have a virtual "Xerobank Machine" all setup on a USB drive. Here on the bottom of the left sidebar. Hmmmm....interesting concept. Guess who else does that? Metropipe! (They call it the "Portable Privacy Machine." All setup for a USB thumbdrive.) See it here.

And there's more. But that will get us started.

Hopefully, Steve Topletz has some answers that make sense about ALL of the above. The connections with Metropipe are too much to be mere coincidence. The talk on alt.anon-servers on Usenet has been (for years) that Metropipe is a logkeeping honeypot and den of spies for the government. And now.....the TOR Project forces Torrify to change their name when the so-called "premium service" is released and you name it XeroBank Browser. And those premium services, it's awfully interesting how they have all the identical Metropipe signatures: the same payment processor, the same IP checking software, identical product shilling for the same anonymous credit card and overpriced encrypted laptops. The fake "anonymity check".......

Steve, what's up?

--Genady Prishnikov
(proudly using a non-XeroBank proxy that I've used for years. It routes through a residential IP in a quiet Midwestern U.S. city and guess what I pay for it? $50 USD a year. A far cry from your asking price of $400.00 plus a year for services that, as outlined above, raise more than a little suspicion.)

Ждать вашего ответа.

+++Supporting TOR and the EFF+++

 

Hi Genady Prishnikov

Thank you for this valuable information.

It's a little bit disturbing to read any information about this issue on the Tor web site and so few in the Tor news group (gmane.network.tor.user) except one message about the "commercial" shift of Torpack...

Newsgroups: gmane.network.tor.user
Subject: www.torrify.com
Date: Wed, 09 May 2007 00:45:46 +0300
Message-ID: <4640EF8A.5020609@piirakka.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org

with this answer from Mr. Roger Dingledine:

" The two organizations are aware of each other and working to clear
any issues.

Stay tuned. And feel free to contact us if you have any questions "
or concerns.



Have a nice day.

 

Thanks for the information, here are some screen captures:

 

Another screen capture:

 

Another screen shot:

 

Another screen shot:

(same as post #4 above) View attachment 190534

 

Another screen capture:

 

Another screen capture:

 

Another screen capture:

 

Last screen capture:

 

GREAT series of screenshots, AJohn!
You visually laid out my questions for Torrify (XeroBank). Good job!

Genady

 

XeroBank used to be Torrify: Serious Answers!

First off, poor form trying to impugn my honesty. I have nothing but 100% integrity, and I can respond to all of your concerns. Regarding outrageous paranoia, no amount of reality or fact can combat baseless claims or assumptions, but we'll give you the truth if nothing else.


0. Is there a question in there?
1. Dalpay is a payment processor. So what?
2. What about metropipe? They are a pretty good anonymity provider and we know them and people who work with them. You might be surprised that most of us anonymity people know each other. However, they have a bad rep started on the fake-site "privacy.li" which is just a low-grade competitor. Nobody with half a mind takes them seriously, as their allegations are mostly made by the admin and his aliases, and then when asked for proof you get your post deleted or deafening silence. However, I think there are legitimate issues with their customer support, but that is just a question of what you consider timely. Personally, I don't trust anonymity providers that don't tell you who they really are. Steve Topletz isn't an alias.

Like I said, we know the same people. However, I don't think those anonymous cards are really in our product arsenal just yet. That isn't what we do, so we chunked it. If there are better ones out there, I'm interested, but again, it isn't part of our brand strategy.

Ditto. I still haven't seen a question yet.

Yeah, I noticed this today. We were updating the code and it appears the programmer uploaded a version that read the refer IP instead of some other piece. This problem, as I understand it, is because we have one server running lighttpd but not php, so it has to pass the data. That server must be the old update.torrify.com server, thus you see that as the host. We'll get it sorted. We just put it up about 24-48 hours ago, we're working on it. You might notice we keep updating the web pages. No need to get paranoid about it. We'll also add in commercial proxy scanning as well so you can test it with other anonymity networks. We spent a while figuring out the best places to read the tor nodes from, and thanks to coderman who is a friend of the tor project and a pretty good guy altogether, we got a good ways there. Still lots of work to do. You won't believe what we are up to with our next projects that are in the pipeline.

And guess who else does it? JanusVM! Tor LiveCD! etc etc. We've seen some good things in the market, but we can do better. So we build the bigger better fortress. And not to mention, I don't think Metropipe's VM is bootable! This should be better than anything out there.

They aren't. For one, we hired one of their programmers because we like the designs and wanted to get the inside scoop on our competition. No worries though, we have other programmers who go through the code, and independent auditors who go behind them. You'll get the transparency you want, which *nobody else* can provide. We're just bringing everything online, so be a little patient, there are only so many hours in the day to manage all these mini-projects.

Haha. And talk is all it is. I have been searching high and low for someone to provide any proof to such claims. That would be a good case for me to expose them and get their customers!

Nobody forced us to change our name. Where do you get that disinformation? We had been working on new branding for some months now. I can't tell you how many requests for tor support we had, let us say it was a lot. About 80% of the stuff on the forum was for problems with tor. You can check that out in the cache easily enough. What ended up happening was that the Tor project has people requesting Torpark support, and vice versa. As soon as they saw we were doing something commercial, it became a legitimate concern for them. There was a trademark issue, because Torrify had filed for one, but Tor didn't have one! So that woke them up when I informed the Tor project that we were filing trademark. But that issue didn't just involve Torrify. But then again, intellectual property over US trademarks that aren't even being used is hardly much of an issue much less anything worth talking about. However, the goodwill we had built up with the name "Torrify" was hard to give up, but hey, those are just business decisions.

I drove an old toyota for years, but now I drive a new BMW. Both of them had four wheels and got me from point A to B. The BMW gets me there quite a bit faster, safer, and more enjoyably. Ask me if I miss the toyota.


Steve Topletz
XeroBank Administrator

 

Re: XeroBank used to be Torrify: Serious Answers!

Thank you for the response. I have been considering your services for a while now, although expensive. I hope you fully understand everyones reasoning for putting so much thought into which anonymity service to use as is a serious matter.

A question for you: Why is it so much more expensive to use money orders and why is the money order option only applicable to one year of the Pro service?

 

Re: XeroBank used to be Torrify: Serious Answers!

That is exactly what I asked our accountant, until I looked at the finance issues. I answered that person in the other thread, but I'll repeat it here: We have to pay the person to run a mailbox, open the letters, cash the money orders, photocopy the money orders, convert them to gold, send over transaction ID #s, xB has to audit the trail and make sure the person isn't stealing the money, etc.

This is the cost of anonymity. If we were to accept money orders in a certain jurisdiction, as ourselves, we might be subject to their laws, which is bad for our customers. Then they could pull an e-gold and say "Oh, you operate in the US? We are going to raid you and force you to give up your clients". That is something we will NOT allow. Further, there is fraud risk associated with money orders and their kind. Think of it like we have to hire a reverse-envelope-stuffer who is honest, just for people who want to pay by mail.

As to why it is only applicable to one year of Pro... That is not an unreasonable request. Let me take that to the board of advisors, and have it changed ASAP.

 

Re: XeroBank used to be Torrify: Serious Answers!

I saw what I feel are valid questions concerning connections to an "anonymity," outfit that I know too much about. I wasn't so much questioning your honesty as I was your ethics in not disclosing Metropipe connections.

Yes, Dalpay is a payment processor. One of several hundred! And considering my concern with your connections with Metropipe you ask, "So what?"

I agree 100% about privacy.li....they are total scamsters. But, what do they have to do with my questions concerning Metropipe? To be quite honest, I find all the coincidences too much to accept. I honestly believe that there's a connection that goes beyond "hiring some of their people."

Oh, and the questions are : Are we supposed to believe that these are all coincidences?
Is there a business relationship - at all - with Metropipe?

Your admitting to knowing the Metropipe people, etc. is a little scary. I know more than I should talk about. But, you say you've heard the stories and just looking for the proof. Well, if you know the stories, you know why there is no proof.

Genady

 

Re: XeroBank used to be Torrify: Serious Answers!

Oh, that's much better.

Ah ha. Okay, well let my tie that one up for you. It is all about fraud. Most anonymity networks are rife with fraudulent users. They buy up big ticket items, and then we find out the card is fraudulent, and not only do we lose the money and get theft of service, but we also get a whopping chargeback fee. So the profit we would have made off of three or four customers gets wiped out by a single fraudster. Not a very good situation if 50% of the buyers are carders/scammers. Dalpay is very good about detecting fraud and dealing with fraudsters, and that is the bottom line. Don't think we aren't on the lookout for alternative payment processors. We want maximum efficiency.

Well, that is where most of those metropipe rumors are from. At least the ones I have found. Sorry if you don't think that is relevant, but that is where I see those absurd honeypot claims come from. And of course, I guess any of it is possible because we simply don't know.

Let me be completely clear: XeroBank is an entirely separate and independent entity from Metropipe, legally AND operationally. XeroBank has aquired talent from independent individuals. Without stepping on anyone's feet in public, this is the same way the competing fierce rivals Microsoft and Apple operate, they source the best and the brightest personnel and resources to create high quality products. I'll leave it up to you to figure out which one of us is Microsoft, and which of us is Apple

Ah yes, the case of the missing proof: All too common among us paranoids. Don't worry, I don't think anyone is going to assassinate you for spilling the beans and telling "more than [you] should talk about." However at this point I can't say I'm terribly interested. I can go down to the pub for similar tales about the-one-that-got-away, but unless I see a wallmount or at least a photo or *something*, it is all just couch fishing.

BTW, I think we fixed the problem. Please check:

https://support.xerobank.com/ipspy/

 

Re: XeroBank used to be Torrify: Serious Answers!

ipspy is working much better now.

Edit: Forgot to ask, why doesn't your registration allow special characters?

 

I wouldn't trust them.

 

Hi goldenone, what is your reasoning based upon?

 

You know, I don't think people need a reason to *not* trust, but perhaps the other way around. We would rather earn your trust that have you simply give it to us. That actually emphasizes value in the trust of our clients, which is our greatest asset. Placing your trust arbitrarily just seems like too much of a risk, nowadays. The costs are too high if you make the wrong investment, so I suggest a thorough exploration of which firms are out there.

 

Hi Torrify

Did you see my question on special characters?

 

In an attempt to keep things in the same thread so as to avoid confusion - I have closed this thread and ask that discussion continue in the other thread on the same subject.